My ADHD Is Controlled, But It's Still There

Yes, that's a silly way of putting "more random observations." Still a bit too depressed to do anything full length at present. Incidentally the title is a joke, but it also happens to be true.

• So, TV Tropes has a trope for how SF is the redheaded stepchild genre. It's called SciFiGhetto. Because I can't hear the word "ghetto" without thinking of the real meaning, it occurred to me: shows like Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, that are much more similar to mainstream shows than to SF proper, get a lot of acclaim from the mainstream press. But a lot of that acclaim is, essentially, "You don't look Jewish."


• On the other hand, let's concede that some of the creepier stuff in SF, like the diplomacy-by-interspecies-sex in Ringworld, or the later Heinlein's obsession with incest, not to mention practically anything involving Trans/Post Humanism, is something of a schande far die goyim.


• So, it's always bugged me...the continent (region?) in Paolini's "Eragon" books. Its name's "Alagaësia", but they pronounce it "a-la-gei-zi-a". Leaving aside that "medial 's' gets voiced despite it not being a Western European language" thing...shouldn't the "¨" over the "e" mean it's "a-la-ga-e-zi-a"? Those little dots usually mark dieresis accent, don't they? Except where they're marking rounded front vowels (German's ö and ü)?


• Personally I would've marked those with some mark over the "e" and "i" respectively, since they're the same sounds only rounded, but the orthography for those languages wasn't really done systematically.


• Then again, when your orthography is done systematically, it immediately starts to date. Case in point: hangeul. All its squeeing fangirls who insist it's just "TEH ACURETIST SCRIPT EVAR"? Idiots. They only say that because it's a linguist-designed script that was actually adopted, and that's what they fantasize about (I'm sorry I made you picture linguists fantasizing). Only, it's not as good as they make it out to be. Aside from how it no longer resembles the way it once worked—"ae," to the extent it's not just pronounced "e," is an open near-front vowel now rather than a diphthong of "a" and "i"—it never marked pitch-accent, which is very important in every dialect of Korean except Seoul (which is femmy anyway). And, worse, it was based on the assumption that Korean, like Chinese, is a syllabic language. Only it's not, it's moraic like Japanese, Turkish, and Finnish—that's why syllables with geminate consonants are accented differently.


• Anyone who prefers the decline of hanja (kanji) use in Korean? Kill yourself. I mean it—how dare you own a head? Do you have any idea how confusing that language is when it doesn't mark which Chinese loanword is being used in a compound?!


• I confess that the main non-Japanese shows I watch are mostly on USA—Psych, Burn Notice, and occasionally White Collar. Thoughts:
  • If you knew Shawn in real life, you'd kill him. Admit it.
  • Fiona just doesn't do it for me, on any level; not only is she a reject from Black Lagoon ("Worse than Hellsing!"), but, well...I consider it a weakness in a show if the female lead has a smaller fond than the male leads.
  • Also RE: Burn Notice, their preaching of late about how waterboarding is oh-so-bad and doesn't work would be a lot more effective if they hadn't used worse, and much more dangerous, things in the last season and gotten results.
  • White Collar...really seems to think it can scrape by just with the con-man guy's pretty face, because honestly, there's not much else this show's got going for it. Check out a Japanese show called Kurosagi for a much cooler use of a similar premise—admittedly by the simple expedient of adapting a comic.


• So turns out Nurarihyon no Mago has a shorthand title, along the lines of BakaTest—it's NuraMago. It's getting an anime in July, because there is a God. I wish it'd get picked up here, but half the later plot involves underage drinking (they do sakazuki with Rikuo), which the wackos in this country would object to more than the fact that they're doing it to swear fealty to their mafia boss.


• In many ways, Ga-Rei is the manga I was hoping Bleach would be, but with the Onmyôryô swapped out for shinigami and more overt romance. Its ending seems to be pretty weak, though, if this is its ending.